KINSHIP by Ursula K. Le Guin
Very slowly burning, the big forest tree
stands in the slight hollow of the snow
melted around it by the mild, long
heat of its being and its will to be
root, trunk, branch, leaf, and know
earth dark, sun light, wind touch, bird song.
Rootless and restless and warmblooded, we
blaze in the flare that blinds us to that slow,
tall, fraternal fire of life as strong
now as in the seedling two centuries ago.
Reading John Connell’s “The Running Book” with its evocative portrayal of the Irish landscape prompted me to dig out this catalogue of black & white photographs by Giles Norman . I seem to remember we picked it up at his studio in Kinsale back in the early 1990’s. Beautiful moody landscape and street photography.
We also had the best Seafood Chowder ever at a pub by the beach at Kinsale.1 Since then all Seafood Chowders have been measure against the “Kinsale Scale”. Most come up wanting.
probably “The Lord Kinsale” pub. ↩︎
There are some excellent galleries in Sydney that focus on displaying the work of local artists and providing exhibition space.
I am sure its a labour of love for most of the gallery owners as the market is not large and the work required to mount a successful exhibition is signifcant.
If in the mood to travel further afield, the galley at the Sturt College in Mittagong always has an eclectic mix of work in particular furniture and ceramics.
Back in 2013 a couple of filmmakers bravely took on the risk of making a high quality movie about the Permaculture movement in North America. Once they had shot the footage, they launched a kickstarter project to raise funds to complete the project last year. The movie, Inhabit was recently released. Its available from Vimeo and also through the Yekra project, an innovative distribution channel that enables media creators to sell their product without having to deal with the traditional players.
Humanity is more than ever threatened by its own actions; we hear a lot about the need to minimize footprints and to reduce our impact. But what if our footprints were beneficial? What if we could meet human needs while increasing the health and well-being of our planet? This is the premise behind permaculture: a design process based on the replication of patterns found in nature. INHABIT explores the many environmental issues facing us today and examines solutions that are being applied using the ecological design lens of permaculture. Focused mostly on the Northeastern and Midwestern regions of the United States, Inhabit provides an intimate look at permaculture peoples and practices ranging from rural, suburban, and urban landscapes.
The first thing that strikes you about the movie are the beauty of the opening scenes, its apparent from the start that the movie will have high production values.
Its engaging and interesting throughout. I particularly enjoyed seeing the homesteads and gardens and hearing from people like Ben Falk and Eric Tonismeier whose books I have found to be valuable and inspiring resources.
Its well worth the $10 to see mature examples of permaculature designs in both rural and urban settings.
INHABIT: A Permaculture Perspective from Inhabit Films on Vimeo.
The most popular post on Slowlane has been Ceramics Destinations in Kyoto , this post seeks to provide the same information for a Tokyo visitor.
Also known as the Japan Folk Crafts Museum. Soetsu Yanagi 1 created this museum to display his collection of mingei items (daily necessities made by common people using local materials)It displays a collection of mingei pottery, textiles and lacquer ware. Feature exhibitions are also held regularly. During our visit the main gallery was showing “KANTHA and SASHIKO - Needle Works from Bengal and Tohoku”.
It’s not obvious that the gallery is open, you need to check the opening hours and then open the wooden sliding doors to enter the beautiful open entrance area. It’s well worth going on a day when you can also visit Yanagi’s house (in 2014 this is open every second & third Wednesday and Saturdays).
A private collection housed in building designed by Toguri, we were privileged to see an extensive selection of Inari ware, featuring a theme designs with water themes “COOLNESS….Ko-Inari ware with Design of Water”.
After making your way from Shibuya station (a 10 minute walk once you have your bearings), take seat inthe lounge to observe the garden before making your way through the upstairs galleries.
Following a link from Fine Woodworking I came across an inspiring collection of videos featuring a group of traditional craftspeople who live in the US state of Arkansas. The state has sponsored the production of a movie series featuring each craftsman talking about their work and practising in their studios.
Something that stands out is the advanced age of some of the artists who are still practising. Chair maker Dallas Bump is 94 and fiddle maker Violet Hensley was still making well into her 90’s.
Other artists that particularly interested me were
The award of “Living Treasure” echos the Japanese tradition of designating important figures in the crafts and arts as Living National Treasures). Several other countries have also adopted the nomination including Australia, although the Aus list is short on crafts people, favouring sports people, politicians, actors, writers and business magnates. Craft Australia has created its own Living Treasures list, adding one person each year since 2005.
A recent reminder of the strong Australian links with Japanese ceramics occurred with the visit of Euan Craig to give a very successful workshop at the National Arts Centre in Sydney. In the 90’s Euan was an apprentice of the Japanese National Living Treasure Tatsuzo Shimaoka.
I describe myself as a Maker, for me the term is a indicator of where my inspiration and satisfaction are found. This has generally been realised in the workshop making objects with wood and more recently clay. Its harder to find in the work I do as a Solution and Enterprise architect. Aspects are definitely present, as myself or my team are generally involved with a larger to team to create and implement a new software capability. However as I have moved more into management it has been becoming a more distant aspect of daily work life.
I think this is part of why I am attracted to the web design world and the app builders. I started my career as a programmer and still regard this as a core skill however it doesn't feature in my professional life a great deal.
New influences
Matt Gemmell wrote about Makers and Takers in a typically strong fashion a couple of years ago. Its really good piece (his blog is always a stimulating read).
People who make things, or Makers, contribute something to the universe. Makers are people like writers, musicians, artists, architects, software engineers, carpenters, and the chap at the coffee shop who makes your morning latte. He has a skill, and he applies it to create something that makes your day a little bit better.
There’s another type of person - I call these people Takers. Takers participate in the economy as money-handlers, exchanging currency on the back of others’ creations. They lend, and sell, and negotiate and manage. You can argue that these things are in themselves skills, and that’s true - but none are anything I’d aspire to
...
I use the services of Takers to the extent that it’s necessary, and accept the tacit crassness and unseemliness of the interaction as a cultural cost. I don’t think that it always has to, or will, be like this, but I accept it for now.
...
Choose someone you admire or otherwise care about. Given knowledge of your motives, would they be genuinely proud of you in your work? That’s the test. What are you creating?
Great infographic post at infowetrust via the Huffington Post and macademic that shows the daily ritual of interesting historical figures. Smoking, coffee and beer appear frequently.
I have linked to this video showing the making of a beautiful guitar before, but its so good its worth another run.
In a previous post I wrote about the positive experience we were having taking part in Geoff Lawton’s Online Permaculture course. Having completed all the online lessons and the quiz we are now working on the practical assignment which is due by the end of August.
The course continues to stimulate us and our enthusiasm for the material remains strong. Even on evenings when we were tired from a busy day the prospect of some “Geoff time” was appealing and we had little trouble keeping up the momentum and staying more or less in line with the proposed course outline.
The course is well structured and its clear that Geoff has given it many times. His great depth of experience serves to ground the potentially abstract materials and to “keep it real”1. For me the only time this focus was lost was in the final section “Creating an Alternative Society”. Geoff still had plenty of relevant experience to relate however the videos for this section felt looser and had a more rambling character than the bulk of the course. For students at the end of an intense two weeks this is probably a relief as Geoff kicks back and the amount of material being relayed eases off.
Random notes
As we start on the practical exercise, studying maps and design options on paper and then taking that onto a plot of land has been revealing and exciting
We didn’t make extensive use of the forums however whenever we had a question we could usually find someone else had already asked it. My wife and I watched all the video’s together and effectively formed a small team, this was very valuable as we continued to discuss the course content beyond the time spent “in lectures”.
The regular uploads of videos with answers to participants questions are excellent and provided an opportunity for him to reinforce core concepts
The course included a DVD set with all of the lectures plus the full set of DVD’s previously created by Geoff. So far we have watched a few of these and I can see they will be a very valuable resource
While being very positive about the online course, I can see that the regular on the ground practical work integrated into the learning experience of an onsite course along with a gifted teacher and located at a well developed demonstration site would have many benefits. The quality of the teacher, the depth of their experience and their ability to communicate this would be a key factor in deciding which course to take
Key learning - the mainframe design. The course has transformed the way we view landscape and has us spotting dam sites and swale opportunities everywhere. Walking around the site we are using for our practical assignment, a place we had visited many times before, revealed a completely new landscape potential to us. Geoff says the course will permanently change the way you view the world and I believe he is right.
Another great benefit is that the course text, Bill Mollisons' Permaculture Designers Guide which I had previously found heavy going, has undergone a sort of decoding and now reveals itself as and incredible useful manual which supports the course content with additional depth and paths to study. ↩︎